Clearly, my cheap digital camera has issues. (Kerber, Deborah, help!?)The Salad
The croutons and dressing helped saved the fact that iceberg is a flavorless vegetable cracker stack. It was a blue cheese dressing. Since I've never made a dressing before, I went with cheap crumbly blue cheese though the cheese man at new seasons lectured me for 3 and a half hours about it. He was insistant enough that I use Bayley Hazen, that I believe commission fairies leave gold coins under his pillow at night. However, he was probably right. The flavor of the blue cheese in the dressing could have been more potent, and the recipe I used even states the end result is a thinner dressing where I like my blue cheese thick and chunky. Still pretty good.
The croutons did end up being good in spite of a few missteps. So, for those that have never done it, cutting half a loaf of day old sourdough into 1 inch cubes, and then realizing they should be without the crust, can be problematic. Most of them were fine, however I had already made the mixture in a skillet to coat them with then cook them in. What I did not compensate was the amount of liquid in the pan was meant for a whole successful half a loaf worth of bread, where my cubes were...less than that amount. So pulling them out of the oven, still soggy and floating on a mix of what looked like primordial ooze had me concerned. But they dried, and were toasty, and a quick reheating outside of their broth, delicious.
I don't have a picture of the finished salad. You see, as I was doing these, I was concerned with the individual components and not how they were fitting together. The salad was done before I did the steak even though I had more than enough time during the suggested ten minutes I let the steak sit after the over to do it. So...I kind of devoured most of the salad while I was doing the steak. It was just so crispy and delicious. Moving on...
The Champ
Champ is what this book I used called their mashed potato's. I don't know if that's an overall term or just what they call it. It's a thinner, lighter mashed to line a plate and put the steak on top of. It was easy, fast and delicious and I probably should know how to make my own mashed potato's, but now I do. Fantastic. So the problematic part of them for me, once again, was my timing. I had them done a good couple hours before the steak, so I stuck it in the fridge thinking it'll reheat just fine. Which it did, but it ended up more the consistency of regular mashed potato's and lost it's light creaminess. Still excellent though especially after soaking up the steak juices (what was left of them but more on that in a minute). They also browned a bit as to reheat them I just tossed them in one of the cast iron skillets at a low heat while I did the other stuff, but besides dusting up it's purity, no worries. Oh, and the green flecks in it are green onion, which I could have chopped up a little finer.
The Steak
Ok, meat. The most successful part of this was defrosting the meat. Good work me. I let it thaw for 24 hours in the fridge, seasoned it with coarse ground black pepper and kosher salt, let it sit in the fridge for 24 more hours, and took it out 2-3 hours before cooking it to bring it up to room temp. This is one of the 7oz private reserve filets. Why did I choose one of those as a first experiment? Easy, the box was close to the top in the freezer. The problematic: I'll take some responsibility because as soon as I, who knows nothing, questioned something Omaha Steaks said about their own product, I shook it off figuring they knew better then I did. But for future reference, I should remember that 160 degree internal temperature is not "medium" according to a few sources who have delighted in making fun of me.
I started with a bit of olive oil in the 10 inch cast iron (going to use the 8 inch next time) Seared both sides till nicely brown and crusted, put the pan in the oven at 450 (again, their temperature for the sear roasted filet). for about the suggested 5 minutes. When I checked the temp, it only barely pushed 110, so, back in the oven. after another check and back in, it had cooked for about ten minutes at that temp. Finally, the thermometer read 120, and up to 130 after continuing to self cook out of the oven for a few minutes. I thought, good enough.
but alas, I was sorely misinformed. But not to a total waste. The meat did retain some of it's moisture, and one spot in the middle almost looked a little lighter than brown. Plus while finding something easy to do for a sauce or with the juices, I came across one that said toss a half a glass of red wine in the pan you cooked in to mix with the juices, boil it down to half its volume and use. Hey! I had half a glass of red wine in my hand! Nice. This helped juice the meat up a bit and was great on the potato's as well.
All in all, not bad for having no idea what the hell I was doing. Now I'm going to the zoo to hang out with the polar bears and think about the next meal. May be a couple days, that was exhausting.
PS-That's a very miniature pat of butter I cut on the steak, a regular size one would have overwhelmed the top and hung off the sides. The steaks was 7oz, but mostly vertical.
PPS- I drank a quart of apple juice while cooking yesterday. It was thirsty work.
PPPS- Polar Bears fur is clear, not white. They can consume 100 pounds of blubber in one sitting, and their biggest worry is overheating, not freezing.
Things that would have made my life a little easier: A spatula, gotta look into one of those.
1 comment:
Is your mother reading this?
btw, you should get some tongs as well as a spatula.
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